Today was the final High Intensity Workout of the experiment. The final day of pain, well at least for this month. I feel stronger and I’m a few pounds bigger than when I started so I feel that this experiment was a HUGE success. No pun intended. I’m going to hold off on weighing and measuring myself until August 2, which is also the day on which I’ll be taking pictures. Enough jibba jabba, on with today’s HIT workout.
Today’s workout was much like HIT Workout # 1. I started on the Nautilus chest press machine and completed one set of 7 reps. I felt good after completing this set and moved right into the lateral pull-down exercises. I completed 7 reps before muscle failure. I got up and sat at the shoulder press machine and pushed out 5 reps before my shoulders collapsed under the weight. It seems I rushed them. I had worked them out just a few days prior and they hadn’t fully recovered.
This workout places an emphasis not only on intensity, but an extended period of recovery as well. It’s important to get adequate rest after your workouts. I got by working two times a week, but this is only because even with me pushing myself, I was still not at the highest level of possible intensity. As the workouts progress, the rest time between workouts will need to increase as well.
Since I’ve talked enough about my shoulders, let me say a few words about the biceps. I completed one set of bicep curls for a total of 6 reps.
The next set was on the leg curl machine. I got through 6 complete reps. Took a 30 second breather, which is more than I usually take, then completed 7 reps on the leg press.
I then went over to the abdominal machine and pushed out 10 slow reps. Not pleasant at all. I was dying by the time I was finished. Even though this is my 9th workout, I still felt a bit light headed after finishing it.
Today’s total HIT workout time was 9 minutes and 49 seconds.
I am so relieved I made it through all the workouts and look forward to the results on August 2, 2009 when the results will be revealed. Although I did my best on the workouts, I feel that I didn’t always rest the proper amount of time.
If I could do it again, which I probably will in the future, I would get more hours of sleep per night. Even while working out I averaged around 6 hours of sleep and I believe 8-9 would have been more ideal. What can I say, I’m a busy guy and trying to do it all is hard, so I cut out sleep time. Hopefully, that’s only a short term solution. Come back on August 2, 2009 for the results.
